Pax Christi head marks 80 years of the international Catholic peace movement in UK visit

Inés explained that Pax Christi, the international Catholic peace movement, is primarily ‘committed to active nonviolence’.

Pax Christi International’s secretary general, Martha Inés Romero, has been speaking in the UK about the importance of “active nonviolence” in the organisation’s eightieth anniversary year.

She highlighted her wide-ranging experience of tackling violence in her native Colombia, where she is based, and more broadly throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, particularly with communities affected by mineral and fossil fuel mining, and with women and indigenous communities affected by injustice and violence.

She addressed around 50 Pax Christi members and friends at the FCJ Centre in London on 29 February. Peace activists from as far afield as Merseyside and Coventry were joined by representatives of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, National Justice and Peace Network, London Catholic Worker and Fellowship of Reconciliation. Andrew Jackson of Pax Christi England and Wales chaired the meeting.

Inés explained that Pax Christi, the international Catholic peace movement, is primarily “committed to active nonviolence”. The first element of this is empowering communities through training and highlighting the valuable experience of nonviolence that local communities offer. The second is the Catholic nonviolence initiative, which makes nonviolence research, resources and experience more accessible to Church leaders, communities and institutions. The third element is impacting public policies with campaigning priorities being Nuclear Weapons and Disarmament, Just Peace in Israel and Palestine and Ecological Justice.

She reported on Pax Christi International’s special consultative status with the United Nations. For example, last week, it advocated for a peace-centred approach to environmental action at the resumed session of the UN Biodiversity Conference in Rome, reaffirming Pax Christi’s commitment to environmental justice.

This week Martha Inés has been hosted by Pax Christi Scotland. On Monday she gave a presentation on nonviolence to an audience at Glasgow University. On Tuesday she delivered a reflection at the Scottish Parliament and on Ash Wednesday, she was to join the annual vigil at Faslane’s naval base. Faslane is the home of Britain’s nuclear weapons, and the Scottish Catholic Bishops Conference has made a number of statements against weapons of mass destruction since the 1980s.

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